Question 3 – Zone 5 Response
Contents
The Question in brief
Response from:
– Rob Campbell
The Question in Brief
This question comes from Charlotte Dwyer and Ny Holmes, two Grade 11 Ottawa secondary school students who recently organized Nepean High School’s successful walkout against Ford’s changes to the curriculum.
Their Question
What steps are you going to take to ensure that students feel they are heard in regards to their involvement in THEIR curriculum?
Rob Campbell
First, congratulations to Charlotte & Ny and all of the other participating students and their allies who made the walkout such an amazing success, here in Ottawa schools and elsewhere provincially. I was thrilled by it as it means at least many students feel empowered enough to do this, the government’s actions have not been allowed to pass by with an OCDSB yawn after all (official school board actions to date have been muted), and a new generation of media-savvy student activists could actually make a difference going forward.
I have been an education activist for many years now myself, co-founded or participated my fair share of grassroots education or municipal action groups, and marched and advocated variously. It can seem sometimes like the world just shrugs, so events like the walkout do truly make one hopeful. Just around the corner now as well, I think we can all expect and predict, will be important funding cuts to school boards, affecting needed supports to vulnerable students and other ‘extras’, so we all need to prepare and be ready to react as we can. Anyway, so a big thumbs up.
It’s a bit lengthy, so apologies for that, but I have a lot to say or to suggest on these topics and want to be thorough. I have broken my reply down into three sections: HPE curriculum, Indigenous curriculum, and Supporting Student Voice on the noted curricula, and in other ways.
HPE curriculum
With the HPE rollback, the new Provincial government is shamefully politicizing education and curriculum, to create a wedge issue to motivate their base, and so for crass political gain, regardless of the disruption or hurt caused. I hope they get all of the blowback they deserve. They already seem to be skating, and burying HPE parent consultation now in other fig leaf consultations. Continued pushback may be making a difference – we’ll see.
The problem here is not only of course that education is getting politicized, students going forward will be somewhat less prepared to assert themselves or less accurately informed, but that it sends a powerful exclusionary message to LGBTQ students, staff, and parents, and by implication invites others to do so also.
I’ve compared 1998, 2010, 2015, and the temp 2018, and 2015 in my view is clearly the best version as it has more and clearer respect statements generally, and many more dialogue and teaching examples to help teachers, and makes some other adjustments. It doesn’t seem to me that there is a large essential difference between 2010 and 2015, but 2010 is paler, less specific, less useful, and less insistent perhaps. What the temp 2018 does of course is two things: returns us to the generally less useful and less forceful 2010 version, and then whites-out the Growth and Development strand within it and pastes in that strand from 1998. The HS curriculum is of course left unchanged (for the moment anyway), and the government has targeted the elementary panel’s HPE.
The entire 1998 HPE not only misses out on online dangers, consent, strong respect messaging for different ways of being, and trusted information on other topics, but explicitly requires some material to be taught in grades later than 2015. The child development and pedagogical experts who designed 2015 I’m sure are on the mark though as to the best age to teach certain concepts and to provide certain information.
Any curriculum should be left to educational and child development experts to design: politics should play no role in this. What’s next, creationism? The whole idea of the modern HPE was to equip children and youth with information, respectful outlook, ability to assert themselves, and trusted information, *before* they needed it or are potentially placed into a situation or confronted with prejudices they are not yet equipped to handle. And, it should be a key part of a general strategy to ensure that all student, families, and staff know they are embraced and respected by their school communities and broader society. It therefore makes no sense whatsoever for parents at large to comment as to the appropriate age they feel comfortable with teaching different elements of any curriculum. And, any license for intolerance of any kind is right out of bounds.
Since the government announcement, I have called for: (a) stronger repudiation of the government action than the Board has issued to date, (b) a motion to support our teachers, directly bullied by the government with threats of a snitch line, and (c) spending some money on release time for teachers union and senior OCDSB staff to together design a progressive response and guidance for ODCSB teachers to follow, so that we won’t have a crazy quilt of responses and confusion. I have also called (d) for supplementing the temp 2018 curriculum to the 2015 standard, on the basis that for all curricula it has always been possible for teachers, and Boards, to provide extra material as long as the basic material was taught, including reach-ahead information, etc. Such developed guidance could be shared with other Boards in Ontario. Unless there is a clear legal impediment here some place – and I think it is likely there is not – the ODCSB could provide leadership in resistance advocacy Provincially.
I also oppose the government’s consultation with parents at large on the 2015 curriculum, which they are now hiding with the fig leaf of other consultations (mostly equally silly), given the blowback they have been getting. It would be shameful to consult on whether or not intolerance is a good or a bad thing, and it is inappropriate for parents at large to comment in areas of pedagogical or child development expertise. I do see a possible role for consultation with parents and parent groups around how best to demystify the 2015 curriculum, ensure a fair reading of it – it is not a scary document by any stretch of the imagination, how best to accommodate when what is taught conflicts too painfully with traditional values that orthodox or traditionalist religious families may defend and hold dear, and how best to engage with them and provide advice on creating dialogue and understanding. This might be worth consulting on, but the curriculum itself, no.
I’m confident however that the OCDSB and most other School Boards will continue to champion respect for LGBTQ students, staff, and families, and indeed, in light of 2015 related developments may well amp them up this coming year and mandate. The OCDSB annually hosts a Rainbow students conference for LGBTQ youth and their allies, its community and civil society rep-based Equity Advisory Committee (on which I have been active in the past as an appointed Trustee rep) routinely reviews such concerns, and generally the OCDSB tries to make every school a welcoming school for everyone of all faiths, ethnicities, orientations, and abilities. I’ve heard some reports that not all HS are equally welcoming however, and this is another bring forward item for me for the coming mandate, should I find that I have been provided a role.
My campaign web site www.CampbellOCDSB.ca carries a draft motion I wrote some weeks ago on this topic (under Motions on the ‘Resources’ tab), as well as links to the various HPE versions (scrubbed now from the Ministry web site). Please also note the general social justice focus of the rest of my ‘Policy’ tab platform elements – especially poverty and spec ed supports. These are the core issues which motivate me.
Indigenous curriculum
The introduction of this new curriculum, heavily influenced by the Truth and Reconciliation Final Report, and the broad participation of professional educators and elders and others, was to have been a joyful moment … so one form of true reconciliation with people working together in partnership (a) to ensure awareness of and respect for indigenous history, culture and governance, including increased pride amongst indigenous students and communities, (b) to help ensure that an at least fuller and more explicit understanding of the cultural evisceration and economic appropriation which has occurred, recently with residential schools, but continuing with atrocious inequity and lack of adequate funding to schools on reserves by the federal government today, and (c) to ensure a continuing partnership by writing in elders and traditional knowledge as explicit sources of key enrichment for indigenous curriculum studies.
Again, the new government’s move to axe the big final conference to review, help finalize, and endorse the new curriculum, planned for a long time as an integral part of the TRC-inspired development partnership, and which was to have hosted respects indigenous educators and elders and others, was so idiotically stupid and destructive it makes one’s head spin. In order to save a relative pittance, they axed one of the crowning glories of the agreed curriculum development process, and something which sought hard to establish a new level of enduring trust and respect, and itself in a small way to help with healing.
It appears that the new curriculum will go ahead with out this important final major review and endorsement. I know that it has been worked on for a long time by a lot of indigenous and non-indigenous people of good will, and certainly it will be a lot better than what went before, and will be embraced and leveraged by the OCDSB (see below), which has been anxious to seriously move forward in closing the education outcome gap (maybe not in one generation per the Final Report but we’ll see), and acting to help heal in ways that it can.
However, because the conference was cancelled, we will never know what further improvements could have come out of it in terms of tweaks and understandings. We will never have that conference’s endorsement, and the new curriculum will be rightly met with some suspicion, and without the joyfulness and celebration it merited. And, we all will labour now under the cloud of an official representative government declaration in effect stating that indigenous community voices and endorsement does *not* matter. What has been built has been irretrievably soured. It is such colossal idiocy.
So, a decent foundation, but I want to hear what our new IEAC advisory committee has to say about the now mandated annual indigenous education action plan. IEAC reps to date have been explicit that they need student voices to be heard and to be involved with IEAC as well as the directly affected indigenous adults of the future.
The OCDSB’s Board of Trustees recently passed a motion calling on its Provincial association (the Ontario Public School Boards Association, or OPSBA) to advocate to accept alternate educator credentials for otherwise uncredentialed elders and others with traditional knowledge who might then be able to teach certain courses in our schools. I fully endorse this effort. The OCDSB this past Spring set up a dedicated Indigenous Education Advisory Committee to advise and advocate on behalf of indigenous students within the OCDSBB, with the committee’s governance largely determined by indigenous community reps. And, the OCDSB is following the Provincial lead (emanating from the past government), to disaggregate some education outcome stats by indigenous status. Again, I fully support this, and have been pushing for disaggregated outcome stats by marginalized population for years – the only way in the end to really get sustained additional resources or new thinking where its needed and force accountability for improvements in my view. In recent years, the OCDSB has also developed a pilot after-4 care program in partnership with the Inuit community (little known fact – Ottawa is the 2nd largest Canadian Inuit municipality in Canada), and had HS youth programming for indigenous youth in partnership with Wabano.
I’d also be willing to support an Indigenous Students Forum or Conference, if the interest existed, similar to the Rainbow one. I am interested in disaggregated outcomes information (academics and also meaningful well-being metrics) by ethnicity, poverty, special education need, and in other ways which might be actionable in terms of policy changes or resources allocation. I have other ideas also, including a central sweat lodge (only one now is out East at Gloucester HS I believe), possible indigenous heritage language classes to add to our existing after-school language classes for communities, I could see locally developed HS courses in indigenous history to supplement what is available now, etc. However, I want to respect the brand new IEAC group and others as well, and hear what their views are and what they have to say in their first year of operation.
Supporting Student Voice on the noted curricula, and in other ways
First, I need to caution (see above), that I’m not terribly keen on non-experts meddling with the curriculum, though my concern is more about limiting what is taught or biases in what is taught. I think it is entirely appropriate and welcome that those served by the curriculum – students – step up and voice their concerns about inadequacies in any curriculum, additional material needed, material relevance to their lives or the world today, and possible slants or biases or omissions in the material which they are concerned may have been imposed as a result of political interference (see above).
As well however, the OCDSB may both create locally-developed HS courses to meet local needs and interests (but requiring Ministry blessing), and/or supplement existing curricula – teachers often do this themselves. I would love to see more optional Civics courses in OCDSB and Ontario HS (Alberta has a strong set of Civics courses I believe). OSTA-AECO, the Ontario Student Trustees Association, maybe 6 years ago now (?), did a survey of HS students asking them directly what they thought the worst HS courses were. The Civics course apparently came out tops as the very worst course in terms of perceived irrelevance and dreariness. OSTA-AECO had meetings with Ministry staff in Toronto in order to improve this course offering. I’m not sure where it stands today and want to find out, but this is a fantastic example of students asserting and declaring themselves and affecting curriculum Province-wide. I wish more of it were done, on a regular basis, and perhaps not having to rely on largely volunteer and under-resourced OSTA-AECO to do it. However, within the scope of the OCDSB, I’d be very willing to speak with the Student Senate, Trustees, student councils, students, and others, and determine if the OCDSB should be providing more funding and support than it does to student organizing within the OCDSB, including at the Intermediate level where interest exists. Indeed, what about an OCDSB-funded student news channel or newspaper? – universities have them. I’m open to ideas.
I believe especially that the Civics course should include something about the educational governance structure that students work within themselves for perhaps 15 years of their lives. What is the history of public ed in Ontario? How is it organized now, why, what are the pros and cons, etc? Locally, what are our options to assert ourselves politically or with respect to technical or policy changes? What is the jurisdictional authority of the principal and school admin, their bosses the superintendents, the role of Trustees, and other players in the system? How are decisions made, etc? This goes to student empowerment where they live, work, and play. At least in the past, the Civics curriculum itself, which some teachers have supplemented, had nicely avoided any mention of School Board governance internally and externally, and focused instead on federal and provincial structures and such. I hope that it is has been updated as a result of OSTA-AECO efforts over the last 6 years or so, but I’m not sure and mean to find out.
I also am generally a fan of student-determined and teacher-coached education, and I personally resist the notion that knowledge can actually be very neatly separated into different siloed curricula. Education can be integrated meaningfully across subject areas and students become really engaged if they are themselves interested in a subject. They can do a deep dive then if they wish, and with teacher coaching to consider cross-subject intersects they may not have considered and to monitor for quality, I see this as a preferred method of ‘instruction’. No school board is very close to this ideal however. The OCDSB does have some specialty alternate HS programs for those for whom the system has not worked, indeed such as Elizabeth Wynwood (in Zone 5 – College), and this is good to have, but it should not be an after-thought, or second-best option tried after standardized education has failed. Within the OCDSB we have a few Alternative elementary programs (to Gr8), where students are encouraged to explore subjects themselves and the teacher coach model is an ideal, however the program is not well understood or well advertised, and struggles to work within the confines of Ministry curriculum dictates required by law. This program’s numbers have been dwindling as French Immersion continues to take off, and I’d support a pilot French Immersion Elementary Alternative program as well as a pilot HS program that was an extension of what we have now in the elementary panel. However, merely keeping quality high in the Alternative program is a challenge, and I will be taking advice from the parent councils-based Alternative Schools Advisory Committee, and others, as to how to best nourish this thinking and approach within the OCDSB. Students, and student organizations themselves could advocate for more of this in regular classrooms and as additional program offerings. My goal though would be to spread what I consider to be a best approach to all students and classrooms, and I’m not that interested in a small insular community of true alternative education for a few.
Happy to continue to dialogue or to follow-up if there are any questions with respect to any of the above.